


Variations on a Requiem

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 04:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: What if Requiem had never happened?





	Variations on a Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: alternate universe for S7 and beyond, diverging from Je Souhaite, with reference to Requiem and the season 11 pregnancy  
> A/N: From a tumblr prompt.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

This may not be the epic you were hoping for, but we all know I work best in shortform. And hey, maybe I’ll expand it later!

The IVF didn’t take. 

Of course it didn’t take, she thought wearily. She hadn’t been to church enough, maybe. God had forgotten the sound of her voice. She’d waded into the darkness with Mulder until the underside of her chin was stained with it. There was no redemption for her. There were no miracles left. Thousands of dollars couldn’t wash her clean. She’d thought that she’d already served her penance, when They had taken her and hollowed her out, stolen her hope and used it to make innocents like Emily who could not bear the weight of the world. 

Mulder held her while she wept. She thought he wept too. She cried deep into the night for the children they would never have, for his parents who would never be grandparents, for her sister who would never ply her with herbal tea for her morning sickness, for her father who would never rock her baby to sleep crooning Bobby Darin songs. When she was done crying, she turned her face up for a kiss. 

He was the only solace she had left, and she would be damned if she let anyone take him from her. Every caress that night was a vow. She didn’t need the church’s blessing for that. He was blessing enough, and he was all she had.

At work, it was easier than she’d thought to deal with the shift in their relationship. They flirted in the office the way they always had, but they didn’t touch. Mulder held the door for her and brushed the small of her back with his fingers, but that was a tradition as old as their partnership. Maybe the years of keeping secrets had paid off, or maybe they’d just always been wildly unprofessional and she’d imagined they were cavalier. She could tell Skinner knew, but he wasn’t likely to cite them for it. He had some inkling of their sorrow, enough to know he shouldn’t ask. 

“Scully, Mulder,” he said one morning as they sauntered into his office. "I hope your paperwork’s in order.“

"Losing half the files in the fire a couple years ago definitely streamlined the filing system,” Mulder said. 

“Why?” Scully asked. 

“The Bureau’s conducting a routine audit,” Skinner told them grimly.

“How routine?” Mulder asked.

“With most departments, it’s essentially a formality,” Skinner said.

“But not with the X-Files,” Scully said. 

“Your expenditures are high,” Skinner said. "That’s all they care about right now.“

"Our solve rate is exceptional,” Scully said. "Especially on the cases we’re called in to consult on.“

"Save it for the auditors,” Skinner told her. "They’re the ones you have to convince. I understand your value and your service.“

"What I’m hearing is that you’re going to write us great reference letters and we should update our résumés,” Mulder quipped.

Skinner leaned back in his chair. "Only if you agree to return the favor.“

"I’ll break out my thesaurus,” Mulder told him.

Scully touched his arm to quiet him. "Thank you, sir.“

"It’s all I can do,” Skinner said. 

They spent days going over their files with a fine-toothed comb, matching every expenditure to some success: if not an arrest, then at least a lead, or a future crime averted. When the auditors came, they were calm and prepared. They had spreadsheets that cross-referenced. They had newspaper clippings about crime rates dropping after their visits. They had follow-up interviews with victims who attested that their problems had been solved.

Scully wondered, just for a moment, what had ever happened in Bellefleur. She hoped that Theresa Nemman no longer got nosebleeds. She hoped that Billy Miles had found some peace. Maybe nobody saw lights in the sky anymore and the tourists just enjoyed the salmon and the peace of the deep woods. She didn’t mention any of it to Mulder. He’d want to revisit their first case, sifting through the pine straw for any evidence of the ashy dust she’d found. Some things were better left alone. A town like that needed its motels, and she and Mulder were inadvertent firestarters. But she looked up across the rows of manila folders and smiled at him, and he smiled back, and the magic was still there, just like it had always been. 

They drew a protective circle of data around themselves like some arcane ritual, and it worked. The auditors blustered and raved, but Mulder (with Scully’s knee pressed tight to his under the table, or her cross necklace in his pocket) and Scully (with Mulder’s foot nudging against hers, or with a drop of his cologne on the collar of her shirt) stayed calm. In the end, the auditors left as satisfied as they could be, with strong admonishments to cut expenses. 

“We could start sharing a hotel room,” Mulder said in a deadpan voice, and one of the auditors turned to the other.

“That might be an acceptable start,” he said. "Travel expenses are the greatest proportion of the department expenditures.“

She rolled her eyes. "Adults need their privacy, Daren.”

Daren gestured at them as if they couldn’t hear him. "They’ve been partners for most of a decade. I’m sure they could figure out an acceptable compromise.“

"It’s not about whether they could compromise,” said the woman. "I’m not even talking about the appearance of impropriety. How long ago did I give you A Room Of One’s Own and you clearly haven’t even tried to read it.“

"I had a mystery on hold at the library that came in,” Daren mumbled, looking down at the papers on the table.

“If feminist literature intimidates you, just give it back,” she told him.

“I’ll look for it,” he said. "But the kids’ puppy likes books.“

"Daren, I swear to God,” said the woman.

“Do you still need us?” Mulder asked. She waved a hand at him irritably, clearly gearing up for a longer conversation. Mulder and Scully slipped out of the conference room and took the stairs down to the basement, pausing in one of the stairwells for a quick kiss.

“For the record,” Mulder said solemnly, “I’m not afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

“Good,” Scully said. "I’ll remember that if we ever end up sharing a room.“

He grinned at her.

Fifteen years went by. There were new presidents, new precedents. On slow days, they ran everything through the scanner and argued over whether they should create a searchable database of the digitized files. Scully was sure it would get hacked. Mulder told her that was the whole point. 

"Information wants to be free,” he told her. 

“So do I,” she said, “rather than going to jail for releasing classified information.” 

“It’s not that classified,” he grumbled, but conceded the point and made subfolders upon subfolders instead. The basement got wired for WiFi. They were still being watched, but everyone was being watched. No one thought they were crazy anymore, or at least, they had more company. Cellphones lost speed dial and got favorites instead. They listened to podcasts on their flights and in their rental cars. They worked their way through skunkapes and serial killers, angels and aliens. They debunked a sewer monster that Mulder had thought might be the Fluke returning to spawn (“Flukes don’t spawn like salmon,” she explained patiently, over and over). They investigated a allegedly haunted bondage club and got a free lifetime membership for two when they hired a dowser and discovered the hot spring underneath the building that had caused the gurgling and the temperature changes. Now and then, they even shared a hotel room. After all, it wasn’t their fault that they’d somehow managed to show up during the busiest part of the tourist season (Mulder was a very thorough researcher). The auditors were placated annually by the exactitude of their reports and sent on their way. 

They split their time between their two apartments. It seemed easier that way. An acceptable compromise. Moving in together would be too obvious; maybe their relationship had been a foregone conclusion from the first day, but they could maintain some kind of plausible deniability for their employer. Maybe there weren’t official rules preventing them from consorting on their free time, but they were under enough scrutiny. She didn’t need a house or a ring or a picket fence to tell her what she meant to him. She still saw it in his eyes every time he looked at her. There were nights they spent apart, but they spent more nights together. She got rid of her stripy couch and her old mattress and they bounced on replacements at the store like a pair of giddy newlyweds. 

It wasn’t easy. She hadn’t expected it to be. But they had spaces to retreat to when they snapped at each other, and that helped, whether it was their separate apartments across state lines or their separate corners of the office. Scully had imagined the growth of the internet would solve more mysteries than it created, but she’d been wrong about that too. Every now and then she caught herself looking at real estate listings, thinking they’d need at least three bedrooms: an office for Mulder to keep his books in (she’d exile the paranormal to one room) and a spare for guests, but when she imagined decorating it, it was always for Emily, or one of the other children they’d never had. 

No. It was better to keep their own places. She could live with the ghosts she already had. She didn’t know why she still ached for that dream. Her fertile years had vanished before she’d had the stability to consider having children. She hardly even got her period anymore - one pack of pads had lasted her the better part of two years, and tampons didn’t even seem worth the effort. 

“I bet we could retire and go into paranormal consulting,” Mulder said one day as they lounged on the replacement they’d gotten for his couch. Unsurprisingly, it was black leather, second verse the same as the first, but with fewer hollows worn into it.

“Paranormal consulting?” Scully said. "Don’t you have a degree in psychology?“

"Look at all these shows,” Mulder said, scrolling through pages of streaming video. "Ghost hunting is a thing, Scully. Bigfoot watching. Spooks and haints make great television.“

"None of those people seem to know anything about the scientific method,” Scully said. "It’s just hours of fabrications and hysteria about draughts.“ 

"I could be extremely hysterical about draughts for the right salary,” Mulder assured her. 

“Hmm,” she said. "I’d go back to the morgue. COPS was more than enough television experience for me.“

"You’d abandon me for the stiffs?” he teased.

“You and I both know that the people who watch these shows aren’t looking for any kind of skeptical or reasoned perspective,” she said. "I’d be a ratings killer.“

"Fine,” he said. "I’ll just talk constantly about my skeptical wife and how she doubts me at every turn and that’s why I could never function without her.“

"I’d prefer that you not reinforce tired stereotypes of nagging women,” she said, “to say nothing of the fact that we aren’t married.”

He shrugged. "It’s a lot to explain,“ he said. "Especially for television. Wife makes sense. The truth belongs to us.”

“I know,” she said, thinking of all the times she’d caught her mother’s slightly disappointed gaze. What they had was too precious and complex to be described to any outsider. There were days she reveled in that and days she despaired of it. 

“You know I’d marry you in a minute,” he said softly.

“I know,” she said, and reached for him. He moved against her as willingly as he ever had. No, they didn’t need a piece of paper from the city hall. They were tried and true. Her hands moved over his body in familiar ways, but his skin still thrilled her. 

In bed, after, with the moonlight streaming in stripes across the duvet, she felt strange in a way she couldn’t describe. Her body tingled. It wasn’t a hot flash or a chill, but she felt as if everything inside her was suspended, in a way that was both comfortable and thrilling. She shifted against him. He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead.

“I’d marry you in a minute,” he assured her again. "Just say the word, Scully.“

"I love you,” she said, and the warmth of his skin washed away whatever oddness had prickled her skin into goosebumps. She curled into him and closed her eyes. 

He didn’t bring up marriage again, and neither did she. They worked comfortably together, teasing apart the stories no one else cared to investigate. She winced, retrieving her luggage at Dulles.

“You okay?” Mulder asked, hovering beside her, his hand at the small of her back.

“Just stiff,” she said. "Must be the plane. I just can’t ever get comfortable lately.“

"You were saying the same thing after that drive the other day,” he said. 

“Maybe I should take up yoga,” she said.

“Only if you wear the pants around the house,” he teased.

She rolled her eyes at him and looked up yoga studios on her phone on the way back to her place. There was one on the way to the Bureau with reasonable rates and plausible class times. She signed up the next day. Most of the class was flexible young people in strappy, trendy, body-hugging clothes (she learned more about some of them than she’d ever wanted to know when she looked up during downward dog), but there were some people her age, mostly women, and they invited her to put her mat in their corner. It was strange to make friends in her fifties, but it was nice, too.

It took her months to notice the rounding of her stomach. The changes in her breasts could have easily been menopause symptoms; ditto the trouble sleeping and the general fatigue and moodiness. Even the few pounds she’d gained could have just been a function of age, despite the yoga and the fact that she still went running. She stepped out of the shower and glanced at the mirror. The shape of the swelling was distinct and she was jolted out of her thoughts. She peered closer, running her hands over her skin. She was glad and frustrated that Mulder wasn’t there to share the moment with her. He hadn’t noticed yet. It might be all in her imagination. Besides, she couldn’t have stood it if he’d reacted badly.

She bought three pregnancy tests on her way to work. One for the morning, one for lunch, and one to take home. Every single one of them affirmed her suspicions. Her hands shook as she pushed them into the trash. She braced herself on the edge of her bathtub, clutching the cool porcelain.

It was going to be hard to explain to her doctor that she’d given birth before, during a period of time she couldn’t remember. It was all going to be hard. She thought she was close to four months along, past the most dangerous moments when miscarriage was most likely. She couldn’t confirm that on her own, but she remembered the night on his couch and the odd sensation she’d felt. The hand of God on her, her mother would probably say. 

A key scratched at the lock and the door of her apartment opened. "Scully?“

"Here,” she called.

“What are you doing?” Mulder asked, appearing in the doorway with a bag full of groceries. "Taking a bath before dinner? You know I’m always happy to join you in the suds.“

She looked up at him, and knew she couldn’t wait another minute to say the words out loud. "Mulder,” she said, savoring the way it felt to say his name, “I’m pregnant.”

He dropped the groceries. She heard the smack of glass against tile, but no bloom of liquid appeared on the cloth bag. Another miracle, the everyday kind. He was already moving toward her, sweeping her up in his arms. "Scully,“ he said, "Scully, how?”

“The usual way,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. "Somehow.“

She could see him mulling a million questions and discarding them all in favor of her happiness. Their happiness. She wanted to tell him she had the same fears. How often had the government intervened in their lives? How many times had they been promised a golden future that disappeared in the sun like the city of El Dorado? 

She wanted to believe in this one.

"It’s a miracle,” he said, his palm cupped over her stomach. She put her hand over his.

“It’s our miracle,” she said.

“What do we do now?” he asked, terror and delight flickering in his eyes.

“We celebrate,” she said firmly. "And then tomorrow, we start planning.“

"We’re buying a house,” he said, leaning down to scoop her up, and she laughed in his arms as he carried her across the threshold of the bathroom.

“We can do that,” she said. "We can do all of it.“


End file.
